In our post Paying to be hated and betrayed (January 1, 2018), in which we deplored the giving of foreign aid by the United States, we also reported that President Trump was stopping aid to the terrorism-sponsoring state Pakistan.

He tweeted:

The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!

Meanwhile, Britain under the weak and incoherent leadership of Prime Minister Theresa May, is increasing its aid to Pakistan.

Britain is to increase foreign aid to Pakistan by more than £100 million even though it has a space programme and nuclear weapons.

The Asian country is now the biggest recipient of UK handouts despite preparing to splash out billions on arms including a new fleet of submarines.

It comes after the Mail yesterday revealed how £300 million of British taxpayers’ money is being handed out to Pakistanis on pre-loaded cash cards as part of a scheme dogged by claims of corruption.

The allegations have led to renewed calls for the UK to ditch its foreign aid targets when there is a crisis in social care at home.

Figures from Britain’s overseas aid department, the Department for International Development, show total spending on Pakistan will soar by more than 30 per cent this year.

Some £441 million will be handed to projects in 2016-17, up £105 million from £336 million in 2015-16.

Yet Islamabad has unveiled a massive military spending plan, pumping £654 million into the defence budget this year – an 11 per cent boost to £6.7 billion.

The figures do not include money spent on its atomic weapons programme. The country is one of a small number of nuclear powers, and has between 110 and 130 warheads.

Pakistan spends around 3.6 per cent of its national income on defence, compared to Britain, which only just fulfils its Nato commitment of at least two per cent.

Last year Pakistan announced it would buy eight new submarines at a cost of around £4 billion, with the country expected to lavish more than £10 billion on new weapons by 2024.

Its space programme has successfully launched a satellite and has an annual budget of around £19.5 million.

Backbenchers have been calling on Theresa May to ditch the Government’s commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on overseas aid when there is a crisis in care for the elderly in Britain. …

The Prime Minister’s spokesman last night said the system helped focus aid on ‘those who need it, when they need it’. The aide said the policy was ‘an investment in our security’ and claimed there were ‘robust’ policies in place to protect against fraud and corruption.

There are no such policies in place. In no way is this vast handout toPakistan an investment in British security.

[Another] spokesman added: ‘Our investment in Pakistan is making the world a safer place by tackling poverty, improving governance and disrupting serious crime, which left unchallenged breeds violent extremism and drives mass migration.’

It is a myth, a lie, an apparently ineradicable illusion that “poverty breeds violent extremism”. There is not a trace of evidence that it does or ever has.

It needs to be noted that most of the gangs that “groom” underage girls for prostitution in Britain are Pakistani Muslims.

It also needs to be recalled that Pakistan has persistently aided the Taliban, has sheltered Osama bi Laden, and imprisoned the doctor who finally revealed bin Laden’s hiding place.

Pakistan does no good to the West. On the contrary, it does as much harm as it can. There is no justification for giving vast sums of British tax money to Pakistan. None.

Who in the days of Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, or for that matter at any time in the past, would have believed that a British government could be so stupid?

And the party in power calls itself the Conservative Party!

(Hat-tip for the Daily Mail report to our British associate, Chauncey Tinker, editor of the online magazine of political commentary, The Participator.)